Drop Drones And A Blinding Flash Of The Obvious

Sometimes you have both pieces of the puzzle right in front of your face and never twig to it.

For months I’ve been watching videos of Ukrainian forces dropping RPGs and grenades from hovering drones onto Russian vehicles. Like these:

I’ve written about the Russian tank cope cages before, and how they were probably ineffective against top-attack antitank weapons like Javelin. But only today, after several months of watching Ukrainian drones drop grenades on tanks and armored vehicles, did the blinding flash of the obvious occur to me that maybe this is the attack the cope cages were designed to thwart. Maybe Russia ran into this tactic and Syria and it was enough of a concern to have the cope cages installed before rolling into Ukraine. Focused on anti-tank weapons and tank-on-tank engagements, maybe we missed the possible effectiveness of the new drone-drop tactic.

Arguing against the effectiveness of this tactic, we saw a lot more cope cages at the beginning of the conflict than we’re seeing now. Maybe it’s an ineffective countermeasure. Or maybe Russia just doesn’t have the time or resources to put it on older replacement tanks being sent to the front.

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11 Responses to “Drop Drones And A Blinding Flash Of The Obvious”

  1. Earth Pig says:

    During WWII, the German Army used mesh coverings on various open-topped light armored vehicles to prevent hand grenades from entering the crew compartment. These are visible on many wheeled armored cars.

    Everything old is new again.

  2. Kirk says:

    Yeah… No.

    Slat armor, as most of the so-called “cope cages” are implemented, would do you no good whatsoever against your typical bomblet/mortar round dropped as an improvised munition.

    Slat armor is effective only against things like HEAT charges with direct nosecap-style fusing, like the various RPG and other AT rounds. Does you no damn good whatsoever against things like HE and the odd EFP warhead or munition.

    I don’t doubt but that the Russians thought that they’d hit on a solution to the whole problem, but it doesn’t work effectively at all against the threat, as we can see. Top-attack munitions these days are mostly EFP types, and while you can somewhat deflect those, they’re nowhere near as sensitive to disruption as the HEAT rounds of yore were.

    Like most armor technologies, slat armor is a mere waystation along the way. It worked for a little bit, but as countermeasures get developed, it’s mostly useless and in the way. The vestigial signs you see of it still in use have a lot more in common with the German WWII Zimmermitt concrete paste armor than anything else–It’s a psychological crutch more than an actual useful thing.

    Honestly don’t know how many magnetic satchel charges the Germans really faced, but I’d be willing to bet that the few they did were vastly outweighed by the amount of material, man hours, and expense they expended slapping what amounted to glorified spackle on the hulls of their armored vehicles.

    Similarly, the “cope cages” are of similar value, and I’d bet money that the number of vehicles they’ve lost because the cages got them spotted or stuck somewhere while they tried to maneuver vastly outnumber any “saves” they might have managed.

    It’s yet another sign that the Russians continue on in the same theme of low professionalism in the lower ranks that the Soviets did. Soviet military theory was full of high-sounding concepts and theories, complete with exquisitely calculated mathematical equations and complicated formulae.

    Which sat on top of a non-existent NCO corps and conscripts who raped each other in the barracks. Zero fieldcraft, zero real discipline–You can see it in all the pictures taken of trash-strewn Russian positions and the utter lack of safety precautions taken doing things like manual unloading of rail cars.

    You wonder why their ammo dumps blow up on the regular? It’s that lack of low-level professionalism and competency. You can’t run a modern society the way the Russians or Chinese do that crap, and we’re learning we can’t, either, as we de-professionalize our working classes. You don’t want your buildings burning down because of bad wiring? Best be sure your electricians are respected and know what they’re doing, down to the lowliest apprentice.

    The fallacy of the Soviet Union and their implementation of Communism wasn’t necessarily that they were socialist in principle; the biggest one was that they thought the “intelligentsia” sitting in an office somewhere were smart enough to make all the decisions that get made in a decentralized anarchic manner in traditional economies. You don’t know how many bras are going to be sold, this year, so when your economic plans rely on being able to project that accurately out five years in advance…? You’re not going to be able to do it, and it’s all going to eventually blow up in your face as all the inherent contradictions come into effect. Same thing happens in your traditional unplanned economies, but there the deal is a lot less centralized–That bra manufacturer that fails to stay on top of the market? He goes bankrupt, and someone who can do the projections and sense the market better takes over. In a planned economy, not only do those failed central planners not ever get “called” on their mistakes, the entire structure gets shaken whenever they get something wrong, because the whole thing is wired in together. Centralized bureaucracy is inherently brittle, because a failure over here means a failure over there, and there, and… You get the idea. The complexity is just too much for centralized control. You’re far better off with fault-tolerant local controls that can fail without taking the entire system down with them when someone gets something wrong, which they inevitably will.

    Unity of purpose and centralized control sing a siren song of ease and logic to the autistic sort of idiots that are attracted to them. In reality, the more power and control they gather in, the more they sow the seeds of their own eventual destruction–You cannot, in any way, control and deal with the chaos of the real world in all of its complexity from some isolated office in a central planning bureau. Everyone who tries that crap winds up falling on their faces.

    Which is precisely why the Soviets went down the way they did, and why Putin’s Russia is bound for collapse as well.

  3. Earth Pig says:

    The German use of Zimmerit was halted in late 1944. Unsure as to the cause. Shortage of materials, the need to speed up tank, panzerjager, and sturmgeshutez production, or final recognition that application of Zimmerit wasn’t worth the effort.

    Haven’t seen any documentation of German widespread German usage of magnetic anti-tank grenades. There has been mention of them, but application seems to be rare. Red Army tank crews feared the Panzerfaust and Panzerschrek more. Use of looted bed springs were used for a while until they were shown to be ineffective.

    Regardless, the countermeasure competition is eternal.

  4. A Landmesser says:

    Amazing how many Russian anti tank grenades were stored. Patterned after German anti tank grenades these were found to be less than effective in the late war stages.

    The German magnetic anti tank grenades used the hollow charge principle and could penetrate most anything fielded prior to 1945. They were designed for use against the lighter armor located on top of the tanks. They could either be thrown under handed or placed.

    This didn’t leave much of a prospect of a long life unless used in built up areas. They were effective enough that the Russians copied them.

    They are perfect weapon for drones.

  5. Kirk says:

    I haven’t seen too many actual Soviet AT hand grenades in use with those drones. The majority of the warheads used that are seen are either re-purposed grenades or mortar rounds.

    I know the Ukrainians tested a modified RKG-3 with drones back in 2020, but I’m unsure how many of those they actually have on hand.

    Additionally, given the impact-based fusing, the slat-armor “cope cages” would be just about useless, as they’re intended to disrupt the probe-style fuses of the RPG and other piezoelectric types out at the tip of the weapon.

    Probably the most devastating use of the RKG series was in Iraq as a terrorist harassment weapon–They would drop them off of overpasses onto passing convoys or patrols. In actual wartime mode, we’d have been blasting the ever-loving snot out of anything we drove under or near, on the precautionary principle, so I’m really not too sure how much use they’d have been in WWIII Gotterdammerung-style conflict.

    There are a lot of weapons systems that come into being because of the false perceptions gained from your own weapons. The Germans had magnetic charges, so they feared the Soviet ones, which mostly didn’t exist because the Soviets had better things to do with their limited magnet production. The US tested its own Belleville-washer based fuses in their mines, discovered that the high-quality fuses were vulnerable to blast overpressure, and then procured the MICLIC mine clearing system. Which didn’t work all that well out in the real world, ‘cos it turns out that a.) Soviet mines didn’t use Belleville washers in their fuses, instead using cheaper and less vulnerable to overpressure coil springs, and b.) modern mines like the ones that the Italians sold Iraq don’t have simple fuses in them that you can get to go off with overpressure. Some of the Valsella mines were a stone bitch to clear, because the fuses were electronic and would actually sit there and count the number of things that passed over, going off after a random number of events. They were mostly programmed to eschew blowing up after a random nearby blast…

    So, yeah… MICLIC don’t work worth snot. Ask the guys who had to go clear out our breach lanes in Kuwait after Desert Storm. They got double- and triple-time for working in those lanes, and that’s where the majority of them got killed because the mines they were dealing with had been sensitized by the blast…

    So, yeah… I think a case can be made for German self-delusion about the enemy: “Oh, we’ve got magnetic charges, so do the Soviets… Must protect the tanks… Zimmermitt it is.”

    Meanwhile, the Soviets had to contend with actual magnetic charges and decided they needn’t bother, in that the odds of a random German getting that close to one of their tanks and having one of those with him, along with the presence of mind to actually use it…? Rather… Slim. There are reasons that the majority of the actions that the Germans awarded the “Panzervernichtungsabzeichen” for involved the Panzerfaust. Very, very few of the guys who went up close and personal with a Soviet tank lived. Although, there was that one guy… Günther Viezenz, who was awarded for killing 21 tanks. Actual AT guys, like gunners on AT weapons, were not eligible for this award.

    I remain highly dubious of man-on-tank action, especially as trained by the various combatants of WWII. Or, even the idiots running things in our Army, back when I first enlisted. We were actually told that you could, should you be manly enough, combat Soviet tanks by sneaking up on them and de-tracking them with the handy 60-inch prybar you were supplied in a lot of vehicles. You were to get it stuck into the moving tracks as the tank went by you, making sure it was right there where the drive sprockets were at. Then, there were the various Molotov cocktail-type solutions, the Eagle charge which was an ammo can filled with C4 and festooned with bent nails and 550 cord such that it would catch on something on the tank and not slide off when you threw it…

    We actually practiced that crap in Europe a few times, and I’m here to tell you, it did not fill me with confidence. My first tour was in the US, and I’d been at Fort Hood as a training dummy for the new M1 and Bradley formations. We tried all that improvised shit, and I’m here to tell you, that there is a really good way to wind up as ground beef under the tracks. The tankers were very clearly a lot more upset at the prospect of having to clean us out from their tracks than they were anything else we might do…

    So, yeah? Hot man-on-tank action? Save that for the movies, darling. It has a huge casualty rate to go with it.

  6. A Landmesser says:

    Kirk says he hasn’t seen many AT grenades in the Ukraine. Tell us about your service there. Considering the Russians infantry main arm against German armor were anti tank rifles one can understand why they copied German grenades.

    Over 1,100 Russian tanks were knocked out by Germans with Panzerfausts in the Berlin campaign. Far more than German tanks eliminated. Again I admire the crystal ball gazing that permits the use of such weapons as suicide. I didn’t realize American infantry men considered their rocket launchers suicide weapons.

    I also visited the Mang Yang Pass near An Loc during my service there to see where Mobile Group 100 was crushed by Viet Minh using anti tank grenades, high explosive engineer packs, and 57mm recoiless rifles along with a few American rocket launchers. Again the Viets inflicted over 60% losses and every account I read does not indicate the use of such charges and weapons was suicide. Perhaps our expert could enlighten us as to the source of his inspiration.

    By the way the Russians made over 3 million anti tank greandes. I saw stores of them near Baghdad and also saw the South Africans displaying them in Joberg during following their clashes with Cubans in the 70s and 80s.

  7. Kirk says:

    Prevalence of the grenades can be judged by watching what the Ukrainians are releasing in terms of video. If they had a stock of them, they’ve been used up since 2014, and they’re now on to using the smaller munitions like the 30mm grenade rounds and mortar rounds.

    I’ve yet to see an actual RKG in anything released by the Ukrainians. If they had them, they’d be a superior solution to the ones they are now using, with no need to 3D print the vanes and plastic surround for the grenade that they are. Not to mention, the superior armor penetration would mean there’s no need to get the grenades into the hatches.

    So… Yeah. If they’ve got them, they probably used them all up after 2014.

    The system works well if you can somehow get yourself overhead, which up until they had ubiquitous drones, wasn’t really a thing. Tackling a tank with an RKG is pretty much the same as going after it with a satchel charge or a shaped charge on a pole: Suicide.

    Without standoff, man-on-tank is a desperation tactic. Period. There are no good solutions, and the guys who earned that badge using the period Geballte Ladung bundle of grenades? Ballsy, desperate bastards. Hope to God you never find yourself in that situation, because you likely ain’t coming back from it.

    And, the source of my “inspiration”, dumbass? Actually having done it a time or two, in training. You go up close and personal with a tracked vehicle, even in routine combat or convoy operations, you begin to get an idea of how dangerous the undertaking actually is. Doing it against men in those vehicles who know what they’re doing? PTSD fodder.

    One of the more darkly humorous memories I have from my service in the Army dates back to the mid-1980s, when my unit transitioned to Corps (Mech) from Corps (Wheeled) Engineer battalion. They brought in the M113s for us from depot, and we went up to train with them at Wildflecken. The master driver we used for that was a guy who’d been in one of the Cav outfits in Vietnam, with extensive time as a driver. He had… Issues. Volumes of them.

    One of the things he did at Wildflecken was set up a training range for the drivers. Complete with targets. As in, targets to run the f*ck over, with scoring and all the rest. See, the way he saw it, the tracks were a weapon. He trained the drivers on how to run infantry over, the proper technique so as not to lose your track, and how to pivot turn over fighting positions and trenches filled with targets so as to crush them when they collapsed. He did little things to add to the realism, like having ziploc bags full of simulated blood to throw on the driver, ‘cos that was how he rolled and that was what he’d experienced in Vietnam.

    When he got done with the guys doing his training lane, they knew how to kill with their vehicle. About half of them loved it; the other half were traumatized to the point where they’d twitch when they heard an M113 engine start up. I went down to that training lane to observe, and I have to give him good marks for the realism, because it was exactly what I’d gone through trying to tackle Abrams and Bradleys at Fort Hood, on foot. At night. In the rain. Still ain’t sure how we all lived through that; it was exceedingly stupid for our leaders to have us doing that, no matter how much realism it added to the exercise.

    Tracked vehicles of any stripe do not mix well with light infantry operations, especially when you’re the sucker expected to take them on. Nine-tenths of what’s in the manual for “improvised AT weapons” is sheer stupidity and suicide on a stick. The other tenth is just… Sad.

  8. SumGai1986 says:

    Did you see the one where the the grenade was dropped directly on the helmet of an Orc in the trench? His helmet (and probably some other parts) flew half way across the field. Spot-on aim.

  9. Kirk says:

    On one level, it’s darkly humorous. On another, utterly disturbing.

    And, not for the reasons you might think.

    Once upon a time, I believed (naively, I must emphasize…) that if the horrors of war were to be seen at home, in living color…? People would be so horrified that they’d demand it stop.

    We can see from the current things popular on Twitter and YouTube that that ain’t so. It’s possible that that “Orc” was identified and his death seen by his family or other loved ones.

    Contemplate that, for a moment. Used to be, what happened at war, stayed at war. Now? You preserve it for posterity, in living color, as you kill again and again. Should those things be preserved?

    Friend of the family was going through her father’s footlocker from the Pacific campaigns in WWII. He was an Army Infantry NCO and then officer in several of the major campaigns and a couple of minor ones. There were things in that footlocker that you have to really wonder at, pictures and trophies of things he did and saw. Some of which might be considered war crimes, these days. How do you reconcile that sort of thing with the loving father figure you knew, the one who had inexplicable nightmares, until you emptied his attic after he died… And, discovered that just maybe, the ghosts haunting him had their justifications.

    I don’t have faith that the horrors of war broadcast to the folks at home are going to change things much, except make them explicitly complicit in what goes on during the war, in their name. Maybe that’s better. I don’t know.

  10. Kirk says:

    Have to issue a correction; lately, I’ve been seeing a bunch of actual RKG shaped-charge grenades in use in the video streams recently, as of January 2023. What this represents? No idea at all.

    And, to reiterate something I see I missed above: Slat armor against an RKG in the top-attack mode is useless. Slat armor basically works by preventing the piezoelectric fuse in a warhead from working by means of “catching” the warhead before it can detonate on the armor. Alternatively, should the fuse strike the slat directly, it still serves to provide stand-off, which means that the jet of the shaped charge is further away from the target than it is calculated to be by the warhead designer. That means it won’t penetrate, or it will reduce what penetration there is.

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